


Midwinter

by riventhorn



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Sharing a Bed, set between series 1 and 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/pseuds/riventhorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Banquets, sharing a bed, and musing on destiny during the longest night of the year</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> Because when winter approaches, I always feel like bed-warming fics. I apologize for the lack of porn.

Arthur drinks too much wine at the banquet and sways dizzily as he stumbles to his feet. Even after months at court, Merlin still isn’t used to the bounty of the royal table and has been staring at all the dishes sent from the kitchens—the capons in a black sauce, the stuffed piglet, the fish soup with eels. He has just stuffed a purloined fried apple slice, dusted with powdered sugar, into his mouth and barely manages to grab Arthur as he trips over his chair and almost sprawls to the ground. 

He catches Uther’s glare, scornful and bitter with wine. 

“I’ll help you to your chambers, sire,” he says quietly to Arthur, who for once doesn’t argue but comes along obediently, footsteps weaving across the rushes on the floor. 

The cold shocks both of them as they forsake the hall for the dark corridors. Their breath fogs in front of their faces. It’s midwinter, the longest night of the year, and Merlin can feel the shifting rhythms of the world as an old year dies and a new begins. 

The cold sobers Arthur a little, and he pushes away from Merlin’s shoulder. 

A servant has already started a fire in Arthur’s chambers. Merlin tugs Arthur over to the hearth where the flames have created a small pocket of warmth in the frigid night. He removes Arthur’s heavy surcoat and his leather shoes, leaving him in his tunic and hosen. 

“It’s cold,” Arthur slurs, stating the obvious as he blinks in the firelight. “You’ll stay here tonight,” he adds. 

“Sire?” Merlin asks, startled, but Arthur is yawning and going to his bed, tumbling onto the blankets. He can’t seem to figure out how to actually get under them, though, and Merlin hurries over to help. 

“Mmph,” Arthur mumbles, immediately curling into a tight ball and pressing his face into a pillow. Clumsily, he pats the mattress next to him. “Come on, then. It’s _cold_.”

Merlin has never slept in such a soft bed. Hastily, he strips to his tunic and draws the bed curtains before climbing in beside Arthur. With the curtains drawn, it is almost completely dark except for a strip of firelight showing through a gap in the stiff brocade. 

Merlin’s limbs are equally stiff at first, unsure how much space he is allowed. But then Arthur rolls closer, fitting an arm around Merlin and sticking his freezing feet on Merlin’s legs. His breath tickles Merlin’s collarbone. 

Arthur almost never touches him. It is always Merlin who touches Arthur—dressing him, washing his back, taming his mussed hair, buckling the gauntlets around his wrists. The most Arthur will do is cuff him round the head if he thinks Merlin is being too slow. Certainly he never touches him like this, in such a familiar and trusting fashion. 

Merlin has the idea that there has never been anyone with whom Arthur can be casually affectionate. The thought of Uther encouraging such displays is absurd, and Morgana would prickle and stare indignantly at any who dared. Arthur roughhouses with the knights, but theirs is a bluff and boisterous contact, absent tenderness. 

Very, very slowly, he puts his own arm around Arthur, twisting a little so that they are facing each other, their knees knocking together. 

Arthur sighs, the wine thick on his breath. The sour wine-smell, Arthur’s sweat, the scent of his skin—it fills the brief space between them under the sheltering blankets, dense and stuffy. Merlin tilts his head, gasping in the colder air. Wriggling a little, he manages to get Arthur’s head tucked against his chest, under his chin. Arthur’s hair is soft against his cheek. 

Arthur falls asleep quickly, but Merlin feels quite awake. He knows that in the morning, Arthur will become aloof once more. He will be the hard steel of his armor, the fine richness of his velvet surcoat, the proud lift of his chin and shoulders. This soft, sweet warmth will flee, peeking out only in odd moments in the lilt of a smile or the wide blue eyes that Merlin imagines must come from Arthur’s mother. 

Merlin blesses the long hours of the night and thinks that perhaps he will slow the dawn, drawing out each heartbeat, the better to remember how it is now, with Arthur safe and sleeping in his arms. 

For this is his. This, here, is his destiny, made tangible in a little murmur that escapes Arthur’s lips as he moves in his sleep and then settles, content. What is a united kingdom, what is Camelot compared to this? What, even, is his magic except in that it can protect and guard Arthur? All becomes inconsequential, the world shrinking until it just the two of them, cocooned in the silent dark. 

How grand it sounds to have a destiny. He has whispered the word often enough to himself, relishing the sense of importance and pride it gives him. He is embarrassed now, thinking of it. For it is not destiny, is it? In the end, it is only love. 

Only love! He rubs his cheek against Arthur’s hair, closing his eyes and smiling. Commonplace enough and yet no less splendid for it. 

It is true that farmers, butchers, tailors, even the lowliest beggar can love but none of them have destinies. But he does not mind giving up one for the other. Or perhaps they are not different but one in the same. If having a destiny means being born for a certain purpose, then it must be so, for he was born for Arthur. He could never leave him, not now that he knows this overwhelming tenderness, sharp and almost painful in its intensity.

A log shifts in the hearth, releasing a pop and crackle of sparks. Arthur sleeps on. 

Merlin draws the blankets around their ears, ducking his head and shifting so that it is his cold feet resting on Arthur instead of the other way around. If Arthur were awake, he would grumble, and they would tussle over it. But he isn’t, and so Merlin takes advantage of the moment. 

The longest night. He searches out Arthur’s hand and cups it in his own, fitting Arthur's lax fingers into his palm. They will greet the dawn together when it comes.


End file.
